Cape Town - The two men who died while taking part in an endurance race in East London at the weekend have been named as Kevin Staessen, 29, and Berton Bosman, 37.
Staessen from Joburg and Bosman from Pretoria died of apparent cardiac respiratory arrest during the first leg of the Ironman 70.3 endurance race in East London and were pronounced dead at St Dominic’s Hospital.
The Ironman 70.3 triathlon is an event aimed at testing the endurance of athletes over a 1.9km swim, 90km bike race and a 21.1km run. Event organisers World Endurance Africa said that the two athletes “had no reported history of cardiac or other medical conditions in terms of the medical details that the athletes reported to Ironman 70.3 SA”.
Eastern Cape police would wait for the results of the post-mortem before confirming the cause of the men’s deaths, spokesman Captain John Fabian said.
Professor Demitri Constantinou, medical chairman for Triathlon SA, said that the occurrence of a tri-athlete “dropping dead” was “very rare”.
“Generally, sudden death of people under the age of 35 or 40 can be caused by undetected heart problems or heart rhythm problems.”
Cape Argus